Husband. Dad. Businessperson. Sometimes athletic.
British Columbia via Alberta
Joined April 2012
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Canada needs more ambition. Start with how we frame sovereign debt.
The Liberals love to talk about Canada having the lowest "net debt" to GDP in the G7.
As many have pointed out, this concept subtracts CPP and QPP funds, as well as other government financial assets such as Alberta's Heritage Fund and Quebec's Generations Fund, and provincial ownership in utilities and Crown corps. All together, those lower the ratio by about 100 points of GDP. Other G7 countries don't have the same assets, so this is not an apples to apples comparison.
On gross debt, Canada is at 113.5% of GDP, 5th of 7. Which is still good, and less misleading.
But the bigger point is this: The G7 is not an aspirational group. France does not have an enviable economy, nor does Italy. Japan has been stagnant for decades and the UK and Germany are on the decline.
Other than the US, none of the other G7 countries have resource revenues and opportunities anything close to ours.
So why not show some ambition and compare Canada to countries like Australia and Norway that also have strong resource economies?
Add them to the chart and see where Canada ranks: Australia's gross debt is 51% of GDP, Norway's is 45%. Both have enviable health care and great social safety nets, and yet they've managed to get there without ballooning debt.
Rather than aiming to be better than a group Canada joined in 1976, we ought to have higher economic aspirations and model ourselves after similar resource-rich countries that deliver strong public services with far less debt.
Teslas on FSD (Supervised) travel ~3x farther between major collisions than the same cars driven manually, and ~9x farther than the average car.
The tech will only get better. The real test is whether regulators keep up.
Want seniors to stay independent longer? FSD.
Want to end drunk driving? FSD.
Want less congestion? FSD.
Want lower insurance costs? FSD.
Governments that care about outcomes should be racing to approve it.
Taylor Little retweeted
Headline is a bit torqued. He didn’t oppose it either. Here is Doerkson’s statement:
“Our government’s focus is on the project in front of us. Pacific Link has been declared in the national interest, it takes a southern route, and it will create good jobs across British Columbia.”
It’s a touchy issue and if I were them I would do some engagement and pulse taking too.
B.C.’s incoming premier doesn’t support tanker ban reversal pitched by Poilievre ctvnews.ca/vancouver/article…
It took until the third paragraph to mention students, and the fourth paragraph to mention learning.
The top priority for our education system should be the students and helping them learn.
The BC teachers union president issued this statement today 🥴
"I recognize that with the outcome of a Conservative government, many of us may be feeling disappointed, scared, or deeply concerned about what might come next.
I know these results may be particularly concerning for Indigenous, racialized, and 2SLGBTQIA+ members. You are not alone."
The more I think about the BC election, the more upset I think the NDP and their supporters should be about it.
The Federal Liberals play politics hard. When Trudeau was flailing near the end of 2024, it looked all but over for them and Poilievre's Conservatives would sail to a massive majority. Instead, Trudeau resigned and Parliament was simultaneously prorogued, Carney was installed and they prepared for an election.
I strongly disagree with the Liberals' approach democratically, but it's hard to argue that they are bad at politics.
Eby could have done something similar and saved his Party. Instead, I think he saw the writing on the wall within his caucus that his tenure as leader was ending and threw a Hail Mary to save it.
That Hail Mary failed. In one night, the NDP went from government to opposition. Cabinet ministers lost their seats, and at least seven first-term MLAs look set to be one-term MLAs. The party is now leaderless and has to rebuild from a defeat it didn’t need to risk.
What an indictment:
“And so ended the reign of Premier David Eby. A man New Democrats considered only three years and 11 months ago to be the one worthy successor to carry John Horgan’s mantle. But who instead, in less than a full term, squandered Horgan’s 13-seat majority and $6-billion budget surplus into a loss of almost 30 seats and $14-billion budget deficit.”
The @bcndp left 2 years of majority gov on the table, in part because of a caucus, cabinet and party that refused to stand up to a sinking leader and start the process of finding a new one. Instead, he drove the party off a cliff.
My latest in @BIVnews:
biv.com/news/commentary/rob-…
You have a point on Cowichan. The title finding rests on s.35 and the case was filed years before DRIPA existed.
Though Cowichan is not DRIPA free: at para 2258, Justice Young found “support for the view that the indefeasibility provisions in the [Land Title Act] do not apply as against Aboriginal title in s. 8.1 of the Interpretation Act.” s 8.1 of the Interpretation Act is the provision requiring all BC laws to be read consistently with DRIPA.
But the main DRIPA case is Gitxaala. In the Gitxaala case, the BC Court of Appeal held that DRIPA brings UNDRIP into BC law with immediate effect, then declared BC’s free-entry mineral claim system inconsistent with UNDRIP because claims registered automatically without prior consultation.
Outgoing Premier Eby said that 20+ lawsuits have since been filed or amended to cite Gitxaala. Here are some other examples relating to DRIPA/Gitxaala:
Power: Lil’wat Nation and its run-of-river partner are suing BC Hydro for a higher electricity price. Their petition cites s.3 of DRIPA directly.
Insurance: An ICBC claimant whose benefits were cut off after a missed medical exam argues the tribunal failed to consider DRIPA.
Mines, forests, car insurance. Those are example cases today. With every law needing to be construed with DRIPA, more will be coming.
Welp.
British Columbians should welcome @Dave_Eby's decision to call an election.
The Province is in dire need of change and was years away from the opportunity. Now the door has been opened by the person in charge of leading its decline to those who are prepared to pull the Province out of it.
In 2019 I was lucky enough to be on a panel at @BenRabidoux’s Vancouver Housing Conference. I can’t imagine my panel was all that interesting, but @Dave_Eby and @AlderLaneEggs were on a session or two prior. And that one was interesting.
At the time, Eby was Attorney General and was building a track record of rooting out money laundering in British Columbia. He was pragmatic and doing the right thing. I left feeling good about having him in the AG seat.
But Premier Eby is no longer that person, if he ever was.
What I didn’t know then is that, as AG, he quietly took the strongest defence of fee simple property rights off the table through a litigation directive mirroring Ottawa’s. So in the Cowichan case, nobody defending the Crown made that argument, and that has contributed to the current uncertainty over private property rights.
Then in 2022 David Eby was acclaimed as NDP leader (and therefore Premier) after Anjali Appadurai had her nomination tossed.
And since then, we have seen a real break in the direction of British Columbia.
Ironically, the only other time David Eby faced an election for Premier, he nearly lost to a Conservative Party that had been mostly dormant for decades. That should have been a sign, but instead he stubbornly continued on his way without acknowledging that voters were ready for change - even if it meant electing an unproven and, until recently, dormant party.
Today on election day we will see what happens, but if he loses David Eby will have made a massive miscalculation on calling this unnecessary election.
For the sake of the good of British Columbia, I wish the David Eby of 2019 was still here. But I suspect he never was.
Time for change.
Taylor Little retweeted
What you see is an angry, tired David Eby.
With him comes radical cynicism and massive incompetence:
• A leader who undemocratically called a snap election two years early against a leaderless opponent in an attempt to avoid being removed as leader of his own party who were losing confidence in him.
• A leader who’s family makes over $500k per year but occupies one of the few $10/day subsidized daycare spots, then lied about donating “the difference” (he donated much less)
• The Attorney General who calls whiteness “unbearable” and earlier wrote an open letter in the Georgia Straight asking white Canadians whether they secretly were all racist.
• A leader who inherited a budget surplus and has turned it into the largest budget deficit the province has ever had
• A leader who has signed numerous backroom deals to give wide swaths of BC to First Nations, who permits unlawful public park closures based on ancestry, and restricts government lawyers and negotiators from standing up for the rights of average British Colombians
• A leader who incompetently oversees mass resignations of doctors from BC hospitals and massive waitlists for doctors and specialists, despite doubling the health budget
• A leader whose caucus saw its most prominent Jewish minister resign after she cited antisemitism and double standards inside the party.
• A candidate who told the legislature that non-Indigenous British Columbians - especially “white folks” - should call themselves settlers, colonizers, and uninvited guests.
• A candidate who has said “we need to reallocate” the police budget, “let’s take some money away from the police budget,” and that a “policing-first” approach “creates more harm,” while street disorder, break-ins, and random attacks remain a huge problem (this same candidate has a polling booth for her election inside the building she runs - how is that allowed?)
• Numerous other candidates who have defended ongoing uncertainty over private property, resource tenures, and economic projects, while labeling critics as engaging in “residential school denialism” just because they ask basic questions about their own property title.
And that’s just a few of them. Close the gates on NDP destruction. Vote BC Conservatives.
What you see is Lorne Doerkson. Waiting behind him are the extremists.
A candidate who called gay people immoral.
A candidate who said “The First Nations have to be conquered.”
A candidate who said it’s better to get sick than get vaccinated.
A campaign director who posted “F*** Islam.”
And that’s just a few of them.
Don’t open the gates. Vote BC NDP.
Taylor Little retweeted
Eby vs Hogan:
“there was discussion about putting a daycare in the legislative building. Many people work there, and a number of MLAs were having children at the time.
“The decision, quite frankly, under John Horgan was, no, this is the last place that gets a daycare … British Columbians need it right now... We can’t be seen to be ahead of British Columbians.”
David Eby’s former finance minister SLAMS him in a new interview.
Selina Robinson says @Dave_Eby is “not an easy premier to work with” and “likes to control things.” Also sharing kind words for BC Conservative Leader @LDoerkson.
Read the full story ⬇️
trendingpolitics.ca/article/…
Death by a thousand cuts. $15M overpay here probably understates the number given how land values are trading in BC right now.
BC needs to restore fiscal competence. Every dollar out the door needs to be thought of carefully.
How many other examples like this are out there?
#bcpoli
EXCLUSIVE: BC govt spent $24.6M on land assessed at $10M for Abbotsford Francophone school
My latest deep dive for @sitkamedia
sitkamedia.ca/exclusive-bc-g…
Let’s put a finer point on this. If BC’s private sector had kept growing at its 2001–2017 pace, we’d have ~250,000 more private-sector jobs today.
That’s ~$2B a year in provincial revenue without a single tax increase.
Private sector job growth beats tax hikes.
Make BC a great place to attract and grow business, and the jobs will follow.
The basis of our prosperity begins with a strong private sector economy. Since 2019, B.C. private sector jobs grew 3.3%. Public sector jobs grew 46.4%.
Source: Business Council of BC @BCBCLaura @BizCouncilBC #bcpoli #cdnpoli
With this decision, the Federal Court of Appeal is pulling back from UNDRIP.
But the result would be different in BC for so long as DRIPA is in effect, and the Gitxaala decision of the BCCA (which the province of BC is appealing to the SCC) supports that conclusion.
The applicable scope of DRIPA in BC is enormous. Why? Because of Section 8.1(3) of the Interpretation Act. It says that “[e]very Act and regulation must be construed as being consistent with the Declaration.”
For those who don't know what the Interpretation Act does, it is essentially a legislated manual or dictionary for how courts ought to interpret laws.
So what does this mean? Every single law in BC remains fair game for a court to consider whether that law is consistent with UNDRIP.
The litigation possibilities are endless.
Big decision with implications for Indigenous rights, Duty to Consult and the application of UNDRIP.
The Federal Court of Appeal unanimously agreed that the federal UNDA legislation to implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) doesn't override Canadian law until the Canadian government, in consultation and co-operation with Indigenous peoples, explicitly establishes such a process.
The Court upheld the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission's approval of a nuclear waste landfill to be built near the Ottawa River at the Chalk River laboratory. Kebaowek First Nation had previously successfully challenged that approval, but that lower Court's decision is now overturned.
cbc.ca/news/indigenous/kebao…
The NDP says $130B in major projects are at risk if DRIPA is repealed.
Partnerships don’t need DRIPA. LNG Canada and Coastal GasLink (~$40B) were approved in Oct 2018: LNG Canada with the Haisla Nation, Coastal GasLink with all 20 elected First Nations along its route. DRIPA didn’t come into force until Nov 2019.
Meanwhile, Eby himself says the Dec 2025 Gitxaała ruling on DRIPA “puts courts in the driver’s seat, instead of British Columbians,” “created confusion and concern,” and exposes the province to “unlimited legal liability.” It’s now headed to the Supreme Court of Canada, and more than 20 lawsuits have already been amended to cite it.
Eby even tried to suspend parts of DRIPA, then backed down under pressure from his own caucus.
Reworking or repealing DRIPA doesn’t erase projects. Eby admits the uncertainty is real. He just couldn’t get his own caucus to fix it.
#bcpoli
BC has $130 billion in major projects on the way BECAUSE of partnerships with First Nations, not in spite of them.
Doerkson's plan to repeal DRIPA would put all those jobs and projects at risk. #bcpoli
This should be a bipartisan issue, not a bogeyman third rail.
Results over ideology.
How do you pay for health improvements if you don't raise taxes?
Here's a thought experiment.
From 2017 to 2026, total health spending increased from about $20B to $43B, or 2.09x.
"Corporate" (much of it health authority bureaucracy) went from $1.4B to $3.8B, or 2.67x. "Community" (much of it primary care bureaucracy) went from $1.3B to $3.5B, or 2.73x.
Let's say those two areas ONLY increased by 2.09x (same as overall increase).
That would result in a savings of $1.6B. Per year.
What could you pay for with that? Well, about 28 MILLION family doctor visits, or more than 5 visits for every single person in BC.
And those cuts to bureaucracy are nothing. There's much more where that came from.
This is why accountability for health spending and results matter.
So how do you pay for health improvements if not from taxes? Follow the (existing) money.
This is good. Everything should be on the table when the current setup is leaving so many people behind.
Bad leaders force artificial constraints within an existing system. Great leaders force outcomes to drive, with system modifications tabled to get those outcomes.
Two things can be true at once:
1) Every British Columbian deserves high-quality health care.
2) Not all British Columbians are getting it.
By their own admission, health care is in crisis. That’s why the NDP’s “Public Health Guarantee Pledge” is an empty stunt.
They'd rather pledge fealty to an ideology than explore solutions that could improve results.
Yet the system they’re asking others to pledge to doesn’t exist today, even under the government they run.
Why? Some examples. An estimated 25,698 British Columbians went outside Canada for treatment in 2025, the highest share of any province. BC cancer patients were sent to Bellingham, WA for radiation. The NDP also spent at least $27M at private clinics to clear surgical backlogs.
Meanwhile, they’re proposing tax hikes on high earners, including many of the doctors they’re trying to attract.
So what does this pledge actually mean? Is a publicly funded cancer patient treated at a US clinic “public health care”? Is a surgery the NDP paid a private clinic to perform "public health care"? If the answer is yes, the pledge is meaningless. If it’s no, the NDP has already broken it.
And the results speak for themselves. The ministry’s own data shows 793 ER closures in a single year. The median wait from GP referral to treatment has climbed from 26.6 weeks in 2017 to 32.2 weeks. Orthopaedic patients now wait over a year.
And the bureaucracy grows. BC’s health system has 70+ presidents and vice-presidents. Alberta has fewer than 10. Corporate and executive spending is up 176% since 2017, outpacing acute care (98%).
More layers don’t mean better care. Every new layer has to coordinate with every layer already there, so complexity grows much faster than headcount. Seven health authorities, each with its own CEO, board and executive team, all answering to the Ministry and to each other. That’s not a health system. It’s a vetocracy, where every approval point can stall the next.
Strong management means that in a crisis, you drop the dogma and find what works. Every viable solution should be on the table so all British Columbians can get high-quality care.
A pledge won’t shorten a single wait list. Results will.
Protecting public health care is how we build B.C. strong.
Today in Delta, I signed our Public Health Care Guarantee. Every BC NDP candidate has signed it too.
It’s our pledge to keep American-style privatization out of B.C. We won’t let anyone charge you for care that’s covered by your health card, let people pay to jump the queue, or pull doctors and nurses away from our public system.
We can guarantee it. The BC Conservative can't.
Tone from the top matters. And on this one, @Dave_Eby failed.
But it isn’t the first time. In 2024 after narrowly winning the election, Eby made sure that all but one of his MLAs got raises through Cabinet, Junior Minister or Parliamentary Secretary roles. Once that was settled, they promptly cancelled the fall seating of the Legislature.
When you campaign on affordability, make sure you’re not also living a two tier version of it.
Just now, David Eby confirms that he has his kids in $10/day taxpayer-subsidized daycare.
Approx. only 10% of BC daycare spots offer $10/day daycare. Most families who want in can't get a spot.
As Premier, Eby earns $227k/year. Eby's wife is a doctor. Their household income is likely well over half a million dollars per year.
We don't resent British Columbians who are successful (we want more people to succeed).
But where there are wait lists, surely a wealthy family like Eby's shouldn't be taking advantage of $10/day daycare. Think about a working single mother? David Eby deserves the spot more than her?